


A New

by suncityblues



Category: Journey into Mystery, Marvel 616, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Other, spoilers for 645
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suncityblues/pseuds/suncityblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For an anon on tumblr who asked:<br/>Hela, the first time she met the original Loki as a child. (That is: Leah who is growing up to be Hela, meets Loki the first time he grows up).</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New

**Author's Note:**

> I went with the JMS version of Loki's adoption, in case you're confused.  
> And, yeah, I probably should have put this with my other ficlets but, honestly, this one is my favorite so I thought it deserved its own post.

The first time Hela sees him after all those years he is sallow skinned and so, so tiny. She almost doesn’t recognize him except that he is swathed in green, lined up with his family as a proud portrait of Holy Asgard and it’s infinite kindnesses. 

She watches them march forward with a bored, cavalier expression that she has perfected amongst the dead and their ceaseless complaining.

Odin gives her a hard look the moment he notices her. She is aware her presence is rare and a bad omen at these little meetings of the realms. That her presence generally means war and death and famine and disease and these are just a few of the things she alone reigns forever victorious in. 

Of course that’s not why she chose to attend. She had heard that some months ago the All-Father had plucked a little prince out of the snow and took him home. She wanted to see it with her own eyes. 

Loki shifts closer to his new brother under the weight of her gaze. He is already showing signs of magic, being abnormally aware of his surroundings, not many would notice her eyes on them from such a distance and she is secretly amused at the whole thing. 

He doesn’t know her. At least not yet. And he is afraid, or cautious perhaps. 

The family moves to sit in their allotted area, and the representative from Svartálfaheimr takes his place to speak about what she is sure are some very important matters to the living that she chooses not to hear. 

She instead imagines briefly what it would have been like for her to pluck the child out of the cold wastelands of Jötunheimr herself. Children die all the time, after all. She could have watched him grow up in the dark underworld of her design and maybe he would grow cruel and maybe he would be happy.  
But that would not be her Loki. And what she desires is her Loki, more than anything.

The waiting, it’s almost unbearable. 

She had waited and waited and waited for her Hela. She had waited and waited for Loki to come back for her like he did last time. She had waited and no one came and so she became what she had been waiting for. 

She casts her eyes towards Æsir royalty and finds a tiny head of patchy black hair that appears to be growing in still, walking in her direction. 

Loki is watching her studiously and she tries to smile but it hurts her cheeks, she can’t think of the last time she’d done it. 

The child doesn’t seem to mind, and waves at her, a foreign move she assumes he must have learned only since he came to Asgard, the arc is too wide and not natural at all.

He doesn’t seem like he smiles all that much either. 

It’s then that one of the attendants yanks him back towards his family and Odin looks between the two of them for a long time as though something horrible had happened. 

Hela, she just leans her head back and tries not to say anything too mean.

**Author's Note:**

> [ read on tumblr](http://suncityblues.tumblr.com/post/34461013340)


End file.
